Imtiaz Sooliman – How to let Humanity Win

It's always easier to have friends than to have enemies, and when you

have diverse people, well, let's make it practical. Let's make it

practical. Let's take a classical example, in the floods recently in

sus Dao in the Western Cape

and Daal, we went to the areas you couldn't fly helicopters. The wind

was too strong, the rain was too strong, the roads were cut off.

Boats couldn't move, and you couldn't get into the area where

people were without food and water for almost four days. Together

with the saps, the disaster management municipality pilots,

gifts of the givers teams. And eventually we called in the

farmers and the community leaders. We then the farmers, then took us

to a road that a farm at connecting to to clear and down.

And slowly we found a bridge that had that was submerged in water.

The engineers came on site and said, Are you willing to take the

chance? My driver said, yes. So the driver said, We will stay on

the site. On the side of the of the of the bridge. If you guys

fall in, we take you out. And together, in that kind of

combination, we worked. And the first truck went across, the

second truck went across, and with the community leaders, the

municipality, disaster management, SAP is all of us together, we

managed to deliver food, bottle water, hygiene, cracks and support

to people who are cut off from the rest of the country at that period

of time. So yes, it was far better working together. The critical

component is not to have ego. When people don't have ego, they don't

want to get the credit, and they do it in interest of fellow human

beings. There's much you can achieve in the country and

outside. We've been to crisis situations all over the world.

What's striking is that people who have been affected by the crisis,

in most cases, they win a disaster. Before the disaster hit,

the disaster was a blessing. It amplified the people's resistance,

their resilience and the challenges they were having. Let's

take some examples. When we got to Niger, it was a famine. August,

2005

the drought destroyed the crops. What just left the Locust came and

made everything up. When we got there with our primary healthcare

teams and with food, the government met us, because the

important thing, again, as I mentioned, is no ego. When you go

in there, you don't think that you're some kind of great lord

that has come from another country. You can't say I studied

in UCD and wits and ukzn and Victoria fishing, especially many

medical guys. You come here and you tell the governments, we are

brothers. We're from Africa. We've come to work with you. Do you need

us? How do you need us? How do we purchase your system? We are not

here to change the system. When that happens, the governor met us.

The mayor met us. The police matters, the district people

matters, the nurses matters. They beat the drum the old system,

because people didn't know there's a foreign team here. So the people

come in their 1000s. We realized seven or eight of us can't see all

these patients. So we triage. We walk to the crowd. Remember, it's

famine, it's malnutrition. The disease is hunger. We touched. We

look at the patients, we tell the mother, because we don't speak the

language, so it's the language of the heart. You point to the baby,

you tell the mother, you can go. The mother understands the

language of the heart and walks out. Something else happens? No

adult males come, no teenagers come, no big kids come and the

mother Don't ask for help for themselves. I couldn't understand

that, and I couldn't understand when I did this and told them go.

They started smiling. After a few minutes, they all started doing

it.

And I'm trying to figure out in seven Why are these people doing

this when there's no doctor that night, we have a session every

night, a briefing session. Tulas, who was with SABC radio at that

time, he would even say, now came and he said, because they go into

the areas, he puts his head up first. He says, I want to say

something. He said, I went to the villages here in kila Berry and

found that three to five children were dying a day. I said, stop. I

have the answer. He said, What do you mean? I said, adult males

didn't come. Mothers didn't take treatment. Teenagers didn't come

and big kids didn't come because they knew we had limited

resources, so they were prepared to sacrifice themselves for the

other kids that were really good benefit so they don't become part

of the statuses of death. And when they walked out of the queue, it

was the same reason their kids were sick, but they were not as

sick as other children. But the crucial point to remember is there

is no guarantee another medical team is coming in 10 days time.

There's no guarantee food is coming in 10 days time. So the

chances are that in 10 days time, their child is going to be sick as

the very critical child now, but they made the supreme sacrifice.

That's the Ubuntu spirit of the people of Africa. When we gave out

the food, there was far more people than we had food. So we

split the food fastened into three ways, rice, maize, sugar and other

things, and we split them out. When it was finished, there was no

riot, there was no complaint. They just put the head down and they

slowly. They walked out with absolute discipline and dignity.

And then those who had received and in minimum.

They already shared. Now they said, Come my brothers and

sisters, bring a cup. Bring a bowl. We'll put for you. And in

that hardship situation, they shared, there's a message to

people who are well meaning, who are not well meaning, or have

earned well, who have support, who have infrastructure, who have

equipment, we have money. It's important in life to share,

because the blessings that come from that you cannot put a price

to it. We have a special word for that in Arabic. In Islamic

teaching, it's called barakah. Baraka is an Islamic word, meaning

that whatever you give the blessing multiplies 10 fold to 700

fold. It comes back in a huge way. It bounties upon bounties upon

bounties without measure. You can't feel it, you can't see it.

It's not tangible, but it impacts in your life, having good

children, having a heavy having a happy marriage, income comes from

somewhere. Food comes good health, blessings. Difficulties come. Yes,

you'll be tested, but they always overcome because of barakah, my

spiritual teacher, who gave me the instruction to form gift of the

givers. Remember, I didn't get out one morning and say to myself, I'm

going to form an organization. Never happened like that. It's

totally spiritual, a spiritual instruction from the person

several 1000 kilometers away in this town. Board. It's a long

story. How I even met him by coincidence. In the spiritual

world, there is no coincidence. He told me, my son, mankind is one

single nation. A god of Al mankind is one. We just know him by

different names,

any person, Imam, Sheik, Priest, Pandit, Rabbi who promotes

violence, extremism, Discord, conflict, confrontation is not a

man of God. Don't follow him. Anyone who preaches love,

kindness, compassion and mercy. Is a man of God. Follow him and

always look after dignity of people. We don't look at race.

Serve people unconditionally. Don't look at race, religion,

color, class, political, revelation or geographical

location. You serve everybody unconditionally. Expect nothing in

return. We've applied that. I'm doing this work for 33 years, and

wherever we go, when you do that unconditionally, you win our

hearts. When we went to a place called hafun, affected by the

tsunami of 2004 all the people came the queue. And you know what?

They were all not sick, but all they wanted was reassurance that

the medical team came because they haven't seen doctors. And you ask

them, what's your problem? I had a headache six months ago, stomach

ache a year ago, and all they want is somebody to talk to them

gently, so you touch them gently, you listen to them, you empathize

with them, you show compassion to them, you give them a listening

ear, and you talk to them a loving way. 60 to 70% of the disease is

gone. They heal just by compassionate approach you.